A Week of Crafternoons

We're opening the upstairs gallery as an escape from the hectic nature of the festive season.

BYO craft project and enjoy the serenity of the gallery while getting your creative on.

from the 13th of Dec - the 19th of Dec, between noon and 4pm.

Entry by donation, all proceeds will go to the Mirabel Foundation!

Contact us for more info

VPHG Crafternoon 3: Softies For Mirabel

Lock in November 24th 2012 for View Point Handmade Gallery's third craft for a cause crafternoon! This month, in conjunction with Mayhem & Chaos we'll be supporting Meet Me At Mikes's - Softies for Mirabel handmade toy drive. We're still nutting out the details but the basic premise will be the same; spend an afternoon crafting in fabulous company for a good cause.

The Mirabel Foundation are a fantastic organisation, they provide support for children and families affected by parental substance abuse. This will be the sixth year that the Softies For Mirabel campaign has run - toys are handmade with love, sent to be displayed in Meet Me At Mike's shop window from the 1st - 20th of December and then matched to one of the Mirabel kids.

We will be sharing more confirmation details as they are arranged, but for now keep the 24th free!

View Point Handmade Gallery Do It In A Dress

The team at View Point Handmade Gallery will be donning school dresses to send girls in Sierra Leone, West Africa to school.

For the month of October View Point Handmade Gallery staff will serve customers, meet artists and attend openings in school uniform. Their mission is to raise $2000 which will give girls in Sierra Leone, West Africa access to education through scholarships, school rehabilitation projects and access to sanitary pads.

Inspired by the quirky nature of the challenge and the cause behind it Jess Cola, the owner and manger at View Point, said “the gallery is always keen to support good organizations that are engaging people in a fun and unique way. We all appreciate the work that One Girl is doing in Africa, and that they are inspiring people to do more.” View Point is also putting the challenge out there to other people in Bendigo – “Join our team, pick your own challenge and Do It in a Dress!”

Do it in a Dress is global movement where individuals and teams sign up to wear a school dress, so that girls in Africa can go to school. In 2011, it’s inaugural year, 77 people from six countries wore a school dress, so that girls in Sierra Leone could wear one too. In 30 days, participants raised an incredible $43,000, which will sent 100 girls in Sierra Leone to school, and provided access to sanitary pads to 147 women. “60 million young girls around the world are not getting an education,” explains Jess Cola. “We can change that by having some fun in a school dress.”

In Sierra Leone, only 1 in 6 girls has the chance to attend high school, and almost one third of the girls born there will be married and pregnant before their 15^th birthday. However, when a girl is educated, everything changes. She will marry later and have a smaller, healthier family. For every year she stays in school, she increases her income by 10% and invests 90% of that in her family. “Educating a girl improves the local economy more than any other type of investment.” says Jess.

Last year, Do it in a dress participants wore dresses to run half marathons, perform on the streets, bungee jump and surf the waves. Others simply wore their school dresses for an entire week. View Point plan to serve customers for the month of October in school attire, but they are encouraging others to participate in whatever way they can, Jess says “It doesn’t matter what activity you do, just as long as you do it in a school dress.”

Do it in a dress participants develop their own challenges, publicise them and collect donations by creating a personalised page at doitinadress.com. The Do it in a dress campaign will officially run for them month of October, with people taking part all over the world, including USA, Canada, UK, Australia, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy and more! “It’s a really fun way to raise money to give a girl the opportunity to go to school. I would challenge everyone to give it a go! Men AND women can put on a school dress, raise $240 and send a girl in Africa to school, it’s THAT easy. And when you educate a girl, she can change her world” Jess says.

If you’d like to support Jess and the View Point team just head to http://doitinadress.com/jessVPHG

The boss lady serving customers on the 1st day of the challenge